The Elevator Theorem
by eisa
Summary: The elevator finally works but Sheldon and Penny manage to get stuck in it. A kiss leads to places neither every dreamt of and the biggest surprise is for the one whom least suspects such a change
1. Chapter 1

Penny pushed the door open to the apartment block with her foot as she struggled with the grocery bags. She sighed as she saw the tall unmissable figure at the mail boxes. She wondered about him sometimes, her man child; all 6 foot 2 of him dressed in long sleeve thermals and comic book t-shirts. She sighed almost as if he was trying to relive some childhood his genius stole from him, her poor sweet naïve neighbour.

Wait a minute _her_ where had that come from?

"Um Sheldon. Can I get some help?" She said as the bags began to slip from her grasp.

"You can but if it is from me why not simply ask may I help you. Your grasp of the English language is loose to say the least." He huffed as he approached her and reluctantly took two of the bags from her.

Once she could actually see over the bags she noticed something.

"They fixed the elevator awesome!" She gasped as she went to press the button.

"Yes I finally decided that I should make some calls in reference to it." He said proudly as if he himself had in fact fixed the broken machine. They waited in silence until the doors pinged open.

"Let's just get home and not speak. Okay?" She sighed, she'd had a long day of failed auditions and cranky customers all she wanted was peace and quite and a glass of the Australian Shiraz she had been looking forward to since lunch time which now rested in her grocery bags.

"That sounds acceptable." He said as he hit the button for their floor. Within seconds a grinding harsh sound emanated from above them and the elevator ground to a shuddering halt. Penny heard Sheldon yelp a little and wondered what sort of new hell she had to endure.

"Just press the alarm and we'll be out in a minute Sheldon." She said calmly placing the bags on the floor. She watched as his trembling hands reached for the alarm and pressed it franticly – nothing. Okay now she began to worry a little.

"Maybe it's a silent alarm and is ringing at the maintenance department." She suggested as she reached for her cell phone.

"But it's Friday what if they are all away!" He gasped clutching his chest anxiously. She sighed and slid down the wall of the elevator and sat on the thin carpeted floor. It was going to be a long evening and she was now stuck with Sheldon Lee Cooper life couldn't be any less fair. She continued to play with her phone until she found the number she was looking for Leonard answered the phone and sound quite out of breath.

"Um Penny not a good time Leslie and I were just well it's not a good time." And he hung up before she even said a word. She cursed as she put her phone back into her apron pocket.

"Well Leonard isn't rushing to our help. So just sit down for a moment and we will wait for the maintenance crew to get here. Do you want some wine?" She sighed as she unscrewed the cap of the green glass bottle. She saw the look in his eye as if he was about to say 'No I do not drink' Instead he reached out his shaking hand and took the bottle from her and took a big swig. Odd he didn't even seem to mind that she had just done the same thing and he never wiped the mouth of the bottle. She smiled as he whined from the tang of alcohol.

He slowly let the alcohol relax his nerves and he sat down on the thin carpet facing Penny his long legs up around his chest.

"I dislike small places." He stated and Penny felt her heart throb for him. Her man child was not only OCD but claustrophobic. She smiled as she took another gulp of wine thankful she had had the foresight to buy two. She opened up the other bottle and placed it in his hand, one bottle each.

They sat there in silence slowly drinking their wine while with each mouthful Penny saw Sheldon's rigid body relax.

"Mee-maw said that I shouldn't drink. It kills the brain cells but Dad always said it only killed the weak ones. I miss my dad sometime." Penny looked up at him and saw big sad blue eyes. She had never heard him speak of his late father and now as tears danced in his eyes she had the over whelming urge to give the man a hug.

"Tell me something about him?" She asked as she came and sat next to him.

"He was smart too not a genius but smart with cars and machines. He repaired cars on the NASA bases. He was only 49 when he had his heart attack. If genetics are anything to stand by that means I have only 19 years left to live. Not counting if this elevator suddenly tumbles down to the basement and we are both crushed beyond belief. You know that would mean that you and I would be forever mingled, as it would be too hard to separate our bones and hair from our crumpled corpse." He said as he took another slug from the bottle.

"Shut up Sheldon! We are not going to die in here. The maintenance crew must be on route by now and we'll be out in an hour." She said trying not to be freaked by what he just said.

"What if they're not?" He said turning to her with big innocent eyes. She wanted to reach out and stroke his face, to comfort this big man child who was all math and science. But it was Sheldon and the contact she would provide would more then likely freak him out even more. She watched as he turned again to look into space as if he had been dazed.

The temperature was slowly rising in the small cab and Penny took of her jacket. Sheldon watched as she threw it to one corner. "What are you doing?" he asked softly as she took off the yellow sweater vest and tossed it to one side.

"I'm roasting in here so I'm cooling down. Are you okay?" She said as she paced the small cab as if she was trapped in a zoo, his eyes watched her closely and she felt her skin begin to tingle. What the hell was going on? Was she on heat? As she looked at the figure curled up on the floor looking up at her with big blue eyes she felt her heart leap.

"Sheldon, may I ask you a question?" She sighed, this might be the only time she could ask the question that had burned inside her since his accidently girlfriend. There was for once no way he could run away to his room to hide from her.

"You may." He sighed as he took another gulp from his bottle.

"Are you a virgin?" She blurted it out as if the words were on fire in her mouth. She watched as he hiccupped in shock. His face turned deathly white and his eyes bulged.

"Why is that information relevant to our current situation? He gasped. He became fidgeting with the label on the bottle and seemed to want to jump right out of his skin. She felt bad for making him so uncomfortable.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have asked." She sighed knowing that the answer was yes. Yes Sheldon was a 29 year old virgin who preferred a good equation to a good night in.

"Don't you yearn sometimes to be held? To be loved?" She couldn't stop herself. He looked at her and sighed.

"I _am _loved; Missy, Mee-Maw and Mom love me. When I wish to be held, well I can not state I have ever wanted to be held the way you put it." He said as he retreated into the corner a little more.

"I know your family love you but I mean the love of some one else. You know where you can be you all the time be annoying and fussy and drive the person mental but they will still take your hand and smile at you and sing you soft kitty because they want to not because it is their family duty." She sighed sitting again.

"You sing me soft kitty." He said in a low whisper. "No-one else does, you and my mom are the only people. Because…" He stopped and his eyes flashed wide for the tiniest moment and he took the longest mouthful. _'because I love you' _ he thought. True when the boys had been stuck looking after him when he was sick he never for one second thought to get them to sing soft kitty, but he had gotten Penny to do it in a moment.

That was it, maybe it was the wine maybe it was the fact that it had simply been that long since some one had kissed her but she reached over and took his face in her hands and she kissed him. It was a soft chaste kiss, she felt him tense under it for only a second then he simply melted into it. He tasted like wine and dark chocolate. She felt him slowly kiss her back, slowly trying to figure out what was going on. The kiss reminded her of something long ago, at the back of the sports hall when she was 11. A first kiss! She was Sheldon's first kiss!


	2. Chapter 2

When she pulled back he didn't move his hands still hovered over her hips as if he was being held back from touching them. His eyes were closed and his head tilted as if he was still kissing her. She wanted to cry, how could she have done this to him? She had no right to take away his first kiss when it was never offered to her.

"Why did you kiss me?" He asked softly as he looked at her. She bowed her head and couldn't think of an answer. His voice sounded so very lost as he couldn't fathom a single reason why some one would want to kiss him. She sighed and put her head on his shoulder.

"Oh sweetie, I kissed you because I wanted to. That was your first kiss wasn't it?" She sighed, if she had known it would have been more special instead of jumping him in an elevator cab. She felt his hand rise up and rest on her shoulder for just a second and then it was back by his side.

"Yes, yes it was my _first _kiss in the sense you mean it." He sighed as he looked to the ceiling tiles. He was two months of being thirty, had an IQ of 187 and yet right now he felt like the kid in first grade that ate the paste without it being a dare.

"I'm so sorry." Penny said as she put her hand on his knee. He stiffened his posture for just a second and then relaxed. He turned to her and saw that her green eyes were almost completely swimming with tears that were waiting for the signal it was time to fall.

"Why should you be sorry? Did you kiss me out of pity?" He said, he didn't know whether to be angry or humiliated by her possible answer. She sobbed now and then as she looked at him she swallowed it just as quickly. His eyes searched hers looking for some clue to what was going on, but he might as well have been blind for all he understood of her expression.

"It wasn't pity Sheldon; I told you I did it because I wanted to." She jumped to her feet now and moved to the far side of the cab and picked up her bottle of wine. She turned her back to him as she took a more then healthy mouthful. Maybe it was a mistake to have kissed him but she didn't regret it; not for one moment. She heard him stand now and knew he was coming towards her.

"You kissed me simply to see what it was like?" He said softly, he was close now and she could feel his breath on her neck; she closed her eyes to fight the tears off. Why did he find it so hard to understand, he could understand why quarks did whatever quarks do but couldn't understand why a woman would kiss him. She suddenly felt trapped, more trapped then being simply stuck in an elevator and felt this conversation could continue in circles if she allowed it. But yet she didn't know how to stop it.

"Yes okay Sheldon I kissed you to see what it would be like. I kissed you because it felt right and I wanted to do it." She said deflated by the vortex of images and thoughts buzzing round her head. The one image that seemed to continue was the thought off how good the kiss had become after the initial shock they both had felt, how it felt right; how it felt like she had kissed him before perhaps in one of those past lives her psychic had told her she had had. Now when she closed her eyes and continued to feel his breath on her neck she could imagine his hands on her, him taking her in a warm embrace and kissing her so passionately that she thought her heart would explode from want.

His hand reached for her shoulder and then stopped before it rested; he thought about it again and brought his hand back down to his side and went back to sit in his corner. 'interesting' he thought to himself though that was too small a word for how he found this situation. He watched her as she stood looking at the blank grey wall and wondered what it would be like. What would it be like to have someone choose to kiss him on a daily basis; what would it be like to be able to hold someone. An hour or so ago he would have physically baulked at the idea and ranted about contact being the main form for the spread of diseases but now, after feeling how soft her lips were against his, how his breath hitched when she had touched him; he thought that maybe being close to someone wasn't that bad.

"Penny I think I understand; according to Rowland Miller's Intimate Relationships text, the propinquity effect can be defined as: "the more we see and interact with a person, the more likely he or she is to become our friend or intimate partner." This effect is very similar to the mere exposure effect in that the more a person is exposed to a stimulus, the more the person likes it; however, there are a few exceptions to the mere exposure effect." He said regaining some of his usual composure. She turned to him and gave him a look he knew all to well; it was a look that said 'I don't speak Martian'

"Okay then in lay mans terms since we have spent a great deal of time together a friendship was formed and from that feelings have developed. Thus you have either consciously or unconsciously grown fond of me in terms that you wish to acquire me as a potential mate." He said soundly. She looked at him and took a deep breath.

"Sheldon, please stop talking like you are referring to monkeys on the National Geographic. In as you say _lay mans terms_ I have a crush on you." She said it out loud and didn't even know it, she had a whopping great crush on a man she once described as a giant preying mantis.


End file.
